Introducing Lorelai Planetarium Redux
by brittaden
Summary: A different take on Lorelai and Christopher breaking the news of their marriage to their one and only daughter. Rory has a few questions for her mother regarding the fresh from Parisian marriage and a previous engagement to the local diner owner.


_**A/N: I don't own anything.**_

 **Why update my unfinished stories to give some sort of resolution when I can purge my flash drive and give you something that I wrote two years ago and never posted because I was going to flesh it out into at least a few chapters of a story but never did?**

 **Anyway.**

 **Like I said this is something I wrote a couple of years ago when I had the idea that Rory wasn't entirely happy about her parent's marriage & with the line that Lorelai possibly could've talked herself out of it, I wanted Rory to talk more with her mother about it. Question her and call her out on it, I suppose. And this is the brainchild of that idea. It's a one-shot.**

 **Some dialogue is cherry-picked from "Introducing Lorelai Planetarium."**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Rory supposed this would be the picture-perfect scene to anyone else if they were to look in on the kitchen as it were at this very moment. There in front of her was her mother and her father finally together and married after several years of never being able to get it quite right. Both had smiles on their faces when they announced their marriage and how it played out in France and how everything was just so beautiful and how they were so happy about it all. And yet, Rory didn't share her parent's enthusiasm over the recent turn of events.

Despite her lack of enthusiasm on the subject, Rory told her parents 'congratulations,' and 'I'm so happy for you guys', and agreed silently when her father suggested that they needed to celebrate with champagne. She remained quiet and avoided either one of her parent's gazes when her mother suggested the cooler in the garage as a place to look for champagne. When she heard the back door shut behind her father, Rory looked up to face her mother.

"Well?" Lorelai asked.

Rory gave a shrug of her shoulders, "What?"

Lorelai made a vague gesture to the band around her finger and to the room around them in which she just dropped her bombshell, "What do you think?"

Rory thought plenty of things. There were plenty of things that she wanted to say to her mother, to ask her mother about the sudden marriage in Giverny and why she wasn't informed about it until now and why she wasn't there, ask her mother why the elopement seemed right when it wasn't that long ago she was heartbroken over Luke. She desperately wanted to be happy for her mother since her mother swore that she was happy and every kid, at some point, seemed to want their parents to be together but she couldn't find that happiness because she wasn't so sure if she believed her mother. Her mother did have a habit of covering up how she truly felt at times just so she wouldn't get hurt.

If Rory was completely honest, she wasn't too thrilled when her parents started dating. At first, it was just weird to see people that contributed to your conception going on dates here and there and suddenly having her dad around acting as if they were a family. But her mom seemed happy with the new development so Rory went along with it, for the sake of her mother who she really just wanted to see happy after months of being plagued with unhappiness. In the back of her mind she figured it wouldn't be long before things crashed and burned as they always did when her dad came back around, and she would be prepared for that, again for her mother's sake. Yet this marriage made things all too real and left Rory with questions that only her mother could answer if she was completely honest with herself.

"Um," Rory faltered for a moment, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what do you think?" Lorelai reiterated.

"I don't know mom." Rory got up from her chair and started to pace the small room in front of her mother. She crossed and uncrossed then crossed her arms again when she stopped in front of her mother. "I can't believe that you did this."

"You're mad?"

Rory scoffed, "Yes, I'm mad."

Lorelai sighed, "Rory."

Rory shook her head, she didn't want to hear it. "Just stop, okay? Don't."

Lorelai nodded, "Okay, but..."

Rory cut her off firmly, "I can't do this right now. Because Dad is about to come back in here, and I just can't."

"Okay," Lorelai replied meekly.

Rory could mark down that response as one of the first times that she ever heard her mother sound meek at something that she said. The two women continued to stare at one another until the back door opened again and in came a champagne-less, empty-handed Christopher that didn't seem to notice the suffocating tension in the room.

"Are you sure there was champagne out in the garage Lor?" Christopher asked. Rory noted her mother's slight cringe at the nickname but it went unnoticed by the husband. "I couldn't find anything out there to celebrate with, unless you wanted to celebrate with a small family of spiders."

Lorelai shook her head and turned to Christopher with a forced smile on her face. Again the husband didn't seem to notice. "It's fine, we don't have to celebrate with anything. We told Rory our news and she's happy, what more could a parent ask for?"

"Nonsense," Christopher disagreed. "This is something that should be celebrated. And by that I mean we should celebrate with champagne. I'll just pop out and pick something up, it won't take too long."

"Christopher, that's really not necessary," Lorelai started only to be cut off by the man in question.

"This is necessary, I'll just step out and get something. In the meantime, my two favorite girls can catch up, you can tell Rory more about the ceremony." Christopher smiled. "I'm sure she would love to hear more details. Wouldn't you kid?"

Rory forced a smile, just like her mother's and she knew that her father wouldn't be able to tell, "Sure, I would love details. Details are very important."

"See Lor, she wants to hear. We told her together like we agreed so now you two can catch up, you can fill her in. I won't be gone long," Christopher promised.

"Okay, hurry back," Lorelai replied, her attention not focused on her husband but on her daughter.

Christopher leaned in and pecked Lorelai's lips before he was out of the kitchen and their line of vision. Just a few seconds after his exit, the sound of the front door opening and then closing could be heard indicating to the two women that Christopher was now out of the house. An unusual, uncomfortable, and tension-filled silence plagued that of the Gilmore kitchen after the departure of the oblivious and champagne-hound Christopher. The two women could do nothing else but hold each other's gaze, both unsure of what to say.

After several 'the tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife' minutes, Rory was the first to speak.

"You didn't take Dad's name, did you?"

Lorelai didn't expect Rory to speak to her the whole time Christopher was gone out for champagne so the sudden question threw her off for a minute.

"No," Lorelai finally managed to say. "No. 'Hayden?' No. I don't want to be Mrs. Hayden planetarium for the rest of my life. I'm Lorelai Gilmore, okay? Lorelai Gilmore without the "Gilmore" is like... Gil, you know, less. Okay."

Rory didn't laugh at her mother's explanation for not taking he father's last name though she knew her mother expected at least a chuckle out of her judging by the smile on her face. She just nodded in response and accepted the explanation though she knew it was flimsy since when her mother was engaged to Luke, she found quite a few sheets of paper scribbled with Mrs. Lorelai Danes as if her mother was practicing her would-have-been future signature.

Lorelai wiped the smile of her face when Rory just simply nodded. "Why do you ask?"

Rory gave a non-committal shrug of her shoulders, "Just wondering. If I write you a letter or mail you something I would like to know how to properly address it. If Kirk is mailman again and he sees Lorelai Gilmore when you're not Lorelai Gilmore then it might never get delivered to you."

"When do you send me letters?" Lorelai asked.

"I don't but if I did, I need to know your proper name so it really gets delivered to you. I may have an emergency one day in which I can only mail you a letter," Rory retorted. "I would need to mail it to the right person."

"A letter mailing emergency?" Lorelai teased, hoping to break the wall she could practically see forming between her and her daughter. When Rory didn't even give her a hint of a smile, she sobered up. "I'm still Lorelai Gilmore so there's no need to worry. I'll always be Lorelai Gilmore. I'll go to my grave being Lorelai Gilmore."

"Okay."

Lorelai frowned at her daughter's tone and now clear avoidance of her since her eyes were trained on the unwashed kitchen floor as if she were trying to make patterns out of the stray dog hairs that she constantly had to sweep up. "What was that?"

Rory lifted her eyes to meet her mother's, "What was what?"

"That, that okay," Lorelai explained. She folded her arms over her chest, "What aren't you saying to me Rory?"

"I told you I don't want to talk about this right now," Rory answered.

"Well I do," Lorelai shot back. "Now tell me what you're thinking. You're obviously not saying something. What is it?" She softened her voice, "Rory, sweetie, honey, sugar, you know that you can tell me anything. Just tell me."

Rory shook her head and decided to stand her ground. "No, I don't think you really want to hear what I have to say. I said that I was happy for you and dad, we can just leave it at that. We'll celebrate when Dad gets back."

"No Rory," Lorelai said firmly. "We can't just leave it at that. If you're really not happy about this I want to know. I want to know how you really feel about this, please don't act like this. I'll play the mom card if I have to."

"Fine."

Rory remained silent while she gathered what she wanted to say. She didn't miss the look on her mother's face as she braced herself for whatever was coming to come her way. There was just so much that needed to be said, that she wanted to say, that she wanted to ask her mother. All of this seemed too soon, too sudden for a woman who not long ago was engaged to another man and planning a big wedding one in which everyone was invited. Her mother swore that she was over Luke and that she was happy but Rory knew her mother better than anyone and she just couldn't believe her mother when she said was happy being married to her father. Sure, she was happy now but her mother had a tendency to get wrapped up in things, to not think something over, to allow her emotions to take over while forgetting about reality. Nothing else matters besides the moment that she is in. Especially whenever Christopher was involved.

Rory finally decided where she wanted to start. "I wasn't even there."

"You weren't there," Lorelai parroted.

"I should have been there when you got married," Rory stated. _Even if I'm not that happy about it,_ she added in her head.

Lorelai nodded, "Yes, you should have been there," she agreed. "You should have been there. I just…you know that I wanted you there. Of course I wanted you there."

"I could have been there," Rory pointed out. She figured her mother didn't think that far. It's as if the person her mother was around Christopher was vastly different than the person who was around everyone else. "All you had to do was make one phone call. You could have picked up the phone and said, 'come to Paris,' and I would have come to Paris. I would've found a way."

"I know that and I did want to call you," Lorelai replied, her voice soft. She took a tentative step towards her daughter. "But then I thought, if I called you, then you'd want to talk about it, and I'd have to explain. And then maybe I would talk myself out of it. I mean after everything that happened with the engagement, I didn't want a debate. I just wanted to do it, because I am so certain, Rory. I'm so certain that this is right. I really wanted to be married to your dad, and I didn't want to talk my way out of it. I just wanted to do it."

With the revelation that her mother didn't want to be talked out of it or the possible fact that she could have talked herself out of it if she spoke to someone else, Rory looked her mother square in the eyes and crossed her arms. She couldn't deny that she wouldn't have tried to talk her mother out of it because no one else as there, it was too soon after Luke, they didn't have a chance to talk about it, and plenty of other reasons.

"Are you?" Rory asked.

Lorelai furrowed her brow. "Am I what?"

"Are you certain that this is right?" Rory questioned. "I mean really, really right, like deep down in your soul you know that this is right, that it could never, ever be wrong."

"I am certain Rory, I really am," Lorelai tried to assure her daughter. "I am very certain about this. This is probably the most certain I have been in my life."

"Really? Because if you are really, really certain that I can try and be happy for you. I just need to know that you're really happy then I'll be happy for the both of you."

"I don't know what else to say Rory, to make it clear to you that I am certain about this. Marrying your dad, I am certain about this," Lorelai declared, trying to keep her voice steady. A watery smile crossed her face. "We're finally a family."

Rory filed the way her mother kept repeating herself away for later, as if she was trying to convince herself that she was certain in this marriage. Her voice lost the slight edge it had from earlier, "Mom, I don't need my parents to be together to know that we're a family. I'm not a little kid anymore. I can handle my parents not being together. In fact, I gave up on the idea years ago when Dad once again promised to be there for us and then left, again."

"His girlfriend was pregnant, he had to step in and do the right thing as a father," Lorelai defended her new husband. "And yes it sucked that he left us again, and that he hurt both you and me but now is not then. It's now. It's different now."

"Why is it so different now?" Rory asked, her arms once again folding over her chest.

"Because it just is," Lorelai gesticulated wildly. She closed her eyes and took a moment to catch her breath. She opened her eyes when she began to speak again. "I know that you're an adult and you don't need your parents together but that's not why your father and I got married."

Rory nodded her head, taking in the information. "Then why did you decide to get married?"

Lorelai hesitated for just a moment and hoped that Rory wouldn't notice. "Because we love each other," she supplied. "Your father and I love each and finally after all these years, the timing was right."

"Was it? Was it really?" Rory inquired. "Was the timing right?" Her voice took on an almost unsettling edge as she questioned her mother. "Or was it because you were both in Paris and you were just swept up in the moment?"

Lorelai was taken aback by the accusatory tone that her daughter took on. She blew out a breath, running a hand through her hair she gave a quick shake of your head. "I don't understand. You've lost me. You seem like you're mad again. I thought we were past that."

"We were just there minutes ago," Rory pointed out. "We weren't exactly past it. I didn't suddenly become happy over this news just after a few seconds. I'm just trying to see where you're coming from with this. From where I'm standing, this almost looks like a mistake."

"A mistake?" Lorelai parroted. "No, no Rory." She shook her head from side to side. "This is not a mistake. I can assure of that, this is not a mistake."

"Are you 100% sure of that? Because, admit it mom, you have a tendency to get wrapped up in Dad whenever he comes around. It happens every time. Sometimes it's like you're 16 again whenever he's around."

"Watch your mouth," Lorelai fumed at her daughter. "You have no right to speak to me like that."

"Well it's true!" Rory shot back. "You can't deny that. You get wrapped up in things whenever he is around and you don't think things through. You even said earlier that you didn't want me to talk you out of this, which I would have done by the way, or you didn't want to talk yourself out of it. To me that doesn't exactly spell the start to a happy marriage."

Lorelai shook her head, "No Rory, you just misunderstood me. I didn't mean like that, like I would talk myself out of it. I just…this is not a mistake."

"What did you mean then?"

"I don't know!" Lorelai snapped. "Your father and I are married and all I want is for you to be happy for us but it seems like you can't even do that!"

"Because I don't think you're truly happy," Rory countered. "I think one you get out of this little Parisian, 'everything is just so happy' bubble that you're in, you'll see that maybe this wasn't the best choice. That maybe you jumped into this too soon."

Lorelai took a moment to collect herself and her thoughts. She found herself wishing that Christopher would just hurry back with the damn champagne he was so insistent about so she and Rory could just stop this, whatever this was. They could toast to the marriage and pretend for just a moment that everything was fine. She knew that as long as Christopher was gone, she and Rory were going to have it out.

"Rory, you're my beautiful and smart daughter and I love you, but I can assure that this isn't a mistake. I am certain about marrying your father," Lorelai replied softly. "This is right."

"You keep repeating that like you're trying to convince yourself that this is right. I'm not trying to be mean or to hurt you Mom, I'm just worried because I don't think this is right. Who knows, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am." Rory paused for a moment. "You may love Dad but I don't think it's the same way you love..."

"Don't say it."

Rory rolled her eyes, "Fine, I won't say it. Doesn't that tell you something though?" she asked, trying to look her mother in the eye but Lorelai avoided her stare. "I really do want you to be happy but I don't think this is the way to go. I think you jumped into this before you were ready."

"That's the point of eloping, you don't think, you just jump," Lorelai replied. "You don't plan things."

"You were happy to plan everything out before, you even managed to plan it in one day. You found the perfect dress." Rory knew that she should stop by the hurt look on her mother's face but she couldn't stop the words from coming out. "You were even on planning on taking his last name or at least some part of it."

"You don't know that."

"Really? Because the wedding plans I found with Mrs. Lorelai Danes on them proves otherwise," Rory pointed out.

Lorelai bowed her head, "Rory, just stop."

Rory barreled on despite her mother's plea. "Do you still love him?"

"Rory," Lorelai warned.

"The answer can either be yes or no. You don't love him and you have moved on or you do still love him and you're trying to convince yourself that you don't. I know it's not really that simple but it can be if you just answer the question." Rory paused and then whispered, "Do you still love him?"

"Rory."

"If you want my opinion, I think you do. I think you jumped into this marriage with Dad, I was fine when you two were just going out because I figured it wouldn't last that long but now this happened." Rory took a deep breath before continuing on. "I think you're still hurting and you tried to prove to yourself that you're not by marrying Dad. I mean you even slept with Dad while the break-up was still fresh."

"Hey!" Lorelai shouted then, lifting her head to look at her daughter. "I know what I did. You just don't understand, okay? Luke didn't want me, we were over before that night."

"So you ran to Dad," Rory shot back. "This is the same thing. I think you're still running from that night. Not literally of course because you hate exercise. I was there after the breakup, I saw how upset you were over Luke and I know that it's hard but I don't think marrying Dad was a good choice. You told me that Luke was the one."

"Well he's not," Lorelai replied, her voice threatening to betray her.

"And Dad is the one?"

Lorelai sighed heavily, "I'm tired of talking about this."

"Do you still love Luke?"

"Rory, I'm done talking about this. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm tired of talking about this," Lorelai reiterated.

"If you would just stop avoiding my questions…."

Lorelai cut her off. "Rory, I said I'm done talking about this." She fiddled with the band on her finger for just a moment. "Your dad and I are married now and I am happy whether you choose to believe that or not. I just really want you to be happy for me, for us. But if you can't then….well…I don't know, I can't force you to be happy. I really want your support though."

Rory shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know if I can support this. You know why," she said pointedly.

"Rory..."

"I mean can you even legally get married in another country when you're just visiting?" Rory questioned. "Did you even have a witness? For most marriages, you need a witness."

Lorelai could only repeat her daughter's name, in the same warning tone. "Rory."

Rory cleared her throat. "I think I should go."

"Rory, please stay," Lorelai pleaded. "Your dad will be back soon with the champagne to celebrate. I know you're not happy but just stay. Please."

"I really should go," Rory ignored her mother's pleas. "I don't think I can stay here right now. I just...I need to go." She disappeared into her room for a moment to get her purse and keys she discarded there, on her way out she looked towards her mother. "I'll tell Dad that I had a school emergency or something, we can celebrate later."

Once Rory had exited the kitchen, Lorelai slumped down in the chair and buried her head in her hands. It's why she didn't see Rory walk back into the room and stand in the doorway. And why she only heard her daughter's voice.

"I know I said I was going, and I am because I really can't be here right now, I just..." Rory paused, collecting her thoughts. "I just don't want to see you hurt again and I honestly feel like once all the newness wears off, that you're going to realize that this was a mistake. I'm sorry but that's how I feel."

The clicking of heels and the slamming of the front door let Lorelai know that Rory was gone, for real, this time. She lifted her head from her hands and stared down at the gold band that adorned her finger. Her heart sank down into her chest as Rory's words weighed heavily on her. She never thought her daughter would react like that. She just wanted to celebrate the news with her daughter, not have all of her motives questioned while her husband was out of the house. She buried her head in her hands again and just waited for Christopher to come back.

* * *

 **Look I understand that Rory may be out of character a little but with the news being broken to her and how she acted on the show and how she was still processing over it for a while, I thought this was a plausible idea. And I mean, Rory's an adult, she can understand her parent's not being together so it wouldn't be something that would make this totally okay for her.**

 **And come on, we all know Lorelai's heart wasn't in this marriage.**

 **As always, reviews are appreciated!**


End file.
